A wellbore fluid serves many important functions throughout the process in drilling for oil and gas. One such function is cooling and lubricating the drill bit as it grinds though the earth's crust. As the drill bit descends, it generates “cuttings,” or small bits of stone, clay, shale, or sand. A wellbore fluid serves to transport these cuttings back up to the earth's surface. As drilling progresses, large pipes called “casings” are inserted into the well to line the borehole and provide stability. One of skill in the art should appreciate that these uncased sections of the borehole, which are exposed to the high pressures of the reservoir, must be stabilized before casing can be set; otherwise, a reservoir “kick” or, in the extreme case, a “blowout”—a catastrophic, uncontrolled inflow of reservoir fluids into the wellbore—may occur. A wellbore fluid, if monitored properly, can provide sufficient pressure stability to counter this inflow of reservoir fluids.
A critical property differentiating the effectiveness of various wellbore fluids in achieving these functions is density, or mass per unit volume. The wellbore fluid must have sufficient density in order to carry the cuttings to the surface. Density also contributes to the stability of the borehole by increasing the pressure exerted by the wellbore fluid onto the surface of the formation downhole. The column of fluid in the borehole exerts a hydrostatic pressure (also known as a head pressure) proportional to the depth of the hole and the density of the fluid. Therefore, one can stabilize the borehole and prevent the undesirable inflow of reservoir fluids by carefully monitoring the density of the wellbore fluid to ensure that an adequate amount of hydrostatic pressure is maintained.
It has been long desired to increase the density of wellbore fluids, and, not surprisingly, a variety of methods exist. One method is adding dissolved salts such as sodium chloride, calcium chloride, and calcium bromide in the form of an aqueous brine to wellbore fluids. Another method is adding inert, high-density particulates to wellbore fluids to form a suspension of increased density. These inert, high-density particulates often are referred to as “weighting agents” and typically include powdered minerals of barite, calcite, or hematite.
Naturally occurring barite (barium sulfate) has been utilized as a weighting agent in drilling fluids for many years. Drilling grade barite is often produced from barium sulfate containing ores either from a single source or by blending material from several sources. It may contain additional materials other than barium sulfate mineral and thus may vary in color from off-white to grey or red brown. The American Petroleum Institute (API) has issued international standards to which ground barite must comply. These standards can be found in API Specification 13A, Section 2.
Other materials, such as finely divided metals, have been used as weighting agents for wellbore fluids, such as found in PCT Patent Application WO085/05118, which discloses using iron ball-shaped particles having a diameter less than 250 μm and preferably between 15 and 75 μm, and calcium carbonate and iron carbonate, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,217,229, have also been proposed as weighting agents.
It is known in the art that during the drilling process weighting agents, as well as cuttings, can create sedimentation or “sag” that can lead to a multitude of well-related problems such as lost circulation, loss of well control, stuck pipe, and poor cement jobs. The sag phenomenon arises from the settling out of particles from the wellbore fluid. This settling out causes significant localized variations in mud density or “mud weight,” both higher and lower than the nominal or desired mud weight. The phenomenon generally arises when the wellbore fluid is circulating bottoms-up after a trip, logging or casing run. Typically, light mud is followed by heavy mud in a bottoms-up circulation.
Sag is influenced by a variety of factors related to operational practices or drilling fluid conditions such as: low-shear conditions, drillstring rotations, time, well design, drilling fluid formulation and properties, and the mass of weighting agents. The sag phenomenon tends to occur in deviated wells and is most severe in extended-reach wells. For drilling fluids utilizing particulate weighting agents, differential sticking or a settling out of the particulate weighting agents on the low side of the wellbore is known to occur.
Particle size and density determine the mass of the weighting agents, which in turn correlates to the degree of sag. Thus it follows that lighter and finer particles, theoretically, will sag less. However, the conventional view is that reducing weighting agent particle size causes an undesirable increase in the fluid's viscosity, particularly its plastic viscosity. Plastic viscosity is generally understood to be a measure of the internal resistance to fluid flow that may be attributable to the amount, type or size of the solids present in a given fluid. It has been theorized that this increase in plastic viscosity attributable to the reduction in particle size-and thereby increasing the total particle surface area—is caused by a corresponding increase in the volume of fluids, such as water or drilling fluid, adsorbed to the particle surfaces. Thus, particle sizes below 10 μm have been disfavored.
Because of the mass of the weighting agent, various additives are often incorporated to produce a rheology sufficient to allow the wellbore fluid to suspend the material without settlement or “sag” under either dynamic or static conditions. Such additives may include a gelling agent, such as bentonite for water-based fluid or organically modified bentonite for oil-based fluid. A balance exists between adding a sufficient amount of gelling agent to increase the suspension of the fluid without also increasing the fluid viscosity resulting in reduced pumpability. One may also add a soluble polymer viscosifier such as xanthan gum to slow the rate of sedimentation of the weighting agent.
Various approaches exist in the art to provide a wellbore fluid with the desired density with a minimum impact on its fluid properties, or “rheology.” One approach has been disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,180,573 which involved purposefully removing some or all of the finest particles from a ground barite (i.e. particles below 6 μm), and then monitoring and maintaining the selected particle size by adding coarser material as the particle size degrades during use.
It is worth noting that, despite the general industry disfavor, other approaches have used small particles as weighting agents. One approach, disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,007,480, uses manganomanganic oxide (Mn3O4) having a particle size of at least 98% below 10 μm in combination with conventional weighting agents such as API grade barite, which results in a drilling fluid of higher density than that obtained by the use of barite or other conventional weighting agents alone. Another approach is disclosed in EP-A-119 745, which describes an ultra high-density fluid for blowout prevention comprised of water, a first and possible second weighting agent, and a gellant made of fine particles of average diameter between 0.5 and 10 μm. The gelling agent particles are small enough to impart good static gel strength to the fluid by virtue of interparticle attractive forces. Yet another approach is disclosed in U.S. Patent Application 20040127366, the specification of which is incorporated by reference herein, which discloses a weighting agent having a weight average particle diameter of less than 1.5 μm and coated with a dispersant for controlling the interparticle interactions, thereby minimizing any increase in viscosity incurred by the use of SIZED particles.
The need exists to provide a high-density fluid that has an improved sag performance as compared to conventional fluids, while maintaining comparable rheological properties.